


Snake Bite

by Daastan_Go



Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Angst, Drama, Erotica, F/M, Family, Gallows Humor, Horror, Language, Murder Mystery, Mystery, Sex, Suspense, Tragedy, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-14 21:35:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28677528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daastan_Go/pseuds/Daastan_Go
Summary: A series of brutal murders of women plague the city; and when a mysterious customer shows up in Devil May Cry, Dante finds himself trapped inside surreal dreams . . . unable to break free.
Relationships: Dante & Eva (Devil May Cry), Dante & Sparda (Devil May Cry), Dante & Trish (Devil May Cry)
Kudos: 3





	1. Dead Chicks

**Author's Note:**

> AN: Treat this story as if it occurs in the canon universe as Dante will take on this case the way he does in Canon Anime/Manga and Videogames. I've toned down Dante's demonic powers to make him more approachable and human as a character.
> 
> Last but not least, Snake Bite was written and completed from 2007 to 2008, so it's fairly old. I just leave it up on my profile as I happen to like it.

# # # # # #

"Dead naked women . . . this isn't what I usually got in mind," said the white-haired man who stood soaking under the heavy downpour in the tightest alleyway.

Wind was picking up speed, and his long dark coat was flying in the wind. It had been raining for the past couple of weeks. Sometimes, it was a light spit easing off the building humidity; but these days, it had been coming down pretty damn hard.

"Dante," said the tall woman with long blonde hair, standing behind him. She was wearing light blue jeans and a black shirt underneath a deep-brown coloured jacket. Her jacket was wet and so was her hair.

"Well—" Dante, leaning on his knees, looked back at the woman who was the spitting image of his mother and frowned. "What am I supposed to do here?" he asked, pointing the barrel of his gun at the naked body of a young woman dumped right next to a dumpster.

The woman sighed and rubbed her shoulders. "Enzo got us a good case. The families think—"

"Think what, Trish?" Dante said harshly, cutting her off.

He stood up straight and shoved the gun back into his dirty brown pants. His face was running with rain water. He wiped his face on his coat's sleeve and looked at Trish again.

"How did that fat-bellied moron pull this detective crap on me?" Dante asked, pointing his hands at himself.

Trish gave him a hard look and leant against the rough wall of the apartment just behind them. She looked up at the moon that shone through a tiny little hole in the clouds gathering into a soft pile.

The alleyway was between two shabby-looking apartment buildings below the overcast sky. The squalor of the slums meant little to the rich _fucks_ that lived far away in the safety of suburbs. Many suffered, cried, and died here—no one gave a _fuck!_

Dante folded his arms across his chest, looking at two hookers flicking their wide-open coats' collars up at the two passersby across the street. It was past 12 a.m., and, usually, the streets were filed with prostitutes and pimps; but in the wake of recent murders, police had started patrolling the town and no one was allowed to roam the streets this late at night.

A police tape was stretched across the alleyway entrance, and a short and pudgy detective was standing with a couple of police officers by the blaring police car. So far, this second murder was a hush-hush affair.

He brought his gaze back to the body: she was a young woman around her late twenties. Her body was rock hard from the cold in the air and the rigor-mortis that had already settled in—probably hours ago.

Her golden hair was spread over her right cheek, and her whole body was pale, glistering with raindrops trailing down. Her green eyes, glazed with rain water, were wide-open and shone at the bulb's light.

Dante tore his eyes away and leant against the back-door of the pub, making his eyes follow the trails of rainwater on the muddied street.

"Look, Dante," Trish said, trying to meet Dante's elusive grayish eyes, "you were going to end up on the streets if Enzo hadn't done something."

Dante snorted and palmed his wet face.

"What do you want, then?" Trish said curtly, raising her hands.

Dante brought his gaze back to hers and unfolded his arms. "What do _I_ want? If anyone starts paying attention to our _amazing_ detective abilities, we're screwed, a'right?"

Thunder flashed, a blue flame in the sky, and, suddenly, the heavy rain mellowed down to a steady drizzle. A thin plume of smoke was steadily billowing into night sky from the roof of a twenty-four-hour restaurant a block away.

Trish's face cracked into a sarcastic smile. "Are you scared that you're not a good detective, my son?" Trish teased, maintaining her meaningful smile.

"Don't be so cheeky, mom, or your son might spank you for being impolite." Dante, putting full stress on _mom_ , threw an askew smile at Trish.

"You've got fake papers, a genuine letter requesting investigation from both the families," Trish said, holding up two fingers of her right hand, "so what's the problem?"

Dante hunched under his coat and looked at his warm smoke-like breath in the air. "I'm not a fucking detective," he said calmly and exhaled warm air.

Trish clapped her hands together. "Is that all?"

"I think you're taking this a little too lightly," Dante said and pulled up his coat's collar. "I've got no experience with this sort of work, so I won't be able to do anything for these families. And besides, we don't even know if this is the work of a demon," he added and ran his hand through his jaw-length white hair that framed his face.

Getting angry at Dante's persistence to drop this case, Trish turned her head at the round detective who slowly made his way to them. He sloshed through the muddy alleyway, stopping for a few seconds at each and every window. The man was a fat-detective cliché if she ever saw one . . .

Dante cocked his brow at him and then turned his eyes slightly at the angry sounds from the two hookers being dragged into the police car. The man was a walking circle, almost round, with three tires round his huge belly and tiny chicken-legs. The ham-fisted detective hitched himself further up to the window pane and then peered inside.

"Ah—" he sighed out, and then clumsily made his way to Dante and Trish. He stopped at the last window. "Have you found anything interesting, private-eye?"

Dante pushed himself off the hard door. "I was waiting for you . . . uh, sir," he said in an artificially unconvincing voice, managed a smile that was somewhat polite: the smile seemed to crack his stone-cold-sober face just a bit.

"Call me Blake," the oversized officer said, inching around the dumpster to get close to the body.

"From what I've heard, this looks the same as before," Dante said slowly and knelt close to the body.

"Hm, yes," Blake said and passed his hand over his few frizzled hairs. Most of them had probably been taken by age. Now, he was left with a dried-up round patch at the top of his thinning head.

Trish zipped up her jacket. It was strangely cold. Even a demon like her could sense something strange in the air. Dante, keeping up his stubborn attitude, had yet to notice it.

"This is the second murder in the city, and it looks like we won't be getting anything from here, as well," Blake said lowly, easing to his feet.

Dante raised his head to look up at Blake. "What do you mean?"

Blake fished out a handkerchief from his pocket. "You haven't seen the first murder site, then?" he asked, giving a light dab to a tiny cut on his left wrist.

"No—" Dante stole a furious look at Trish. "I was hired recently," he said and returned his gaze to the body.

"I see," Blake sighed out, looking beat, and shoved the handkerchief back into his pocket. "The first body was dumped in an alleyway about seven blocks away." He pointed his hand outwards.

"At the back of a dance club—I think," Dante said, pulling his leather glove on his right hand.

Blake nodded in response. "Yes, and she looked very similar."

Dante brushed few golden strands aside and turned her head to look at wispy marks on her neck. "She looks very white. I don't think there's a single drop of blood in her entire body," he said, sounding serious at the sight of small black veins appearing dead and web-like on her entire body.

"This is what the last postmortem report told us," Blake agreed and looked back at the police car and the ambulance that had just stopped in front of the alleyway.

Dante pulled his hand back and ran his eyes over the mud around the body. "Does it say how this could've happened?"

"Sadly, no," Blake said in reply, rubbing his hands together.

"What are these?" Dante asked, pressing his fingers slightly over two puncture wounds where the girl's neck and jaw ran together. "Is that a—" he stopped for a second, "—a snake bite?"

"Yes, the girl before her had them, too," Blake answered, stooping his back to take a good look at the two perfectly round black holes in the girl's neck.

"These fangs are huge," Dante said in a voice that had a great note of surprise, "but they're very close to each other."

"What are you suggesting?" Blake asked and pulled himself back up to a slightly straight position, with just a little droop to his back.

"Was the first girl poisoned?" Dante asked quickly, looking at Blake from the corner of his eye.

"No, but it would seem that some blood might've been lost this way," Blake said, looking curiously at Dante.

Dante took in some fresh air. "The marks are too close," he said thoughtfully, "the snake couldn't have been that large, but the holes are pretty big . . . "

"The pathologists have yet to determine what kind of snake it is," Blake explained and looked over to Trish who stood quietly by the dumpster. "Sometimes, I really hate this job—you keep doin' stuff a'right through the years, and suddenly, some bullshit happens that you can't explain," he added, lost in thought.

"It couldn't have been a large snake," Dante said and got to his feet.

"Really?" Blake asked and wiped his eyes clean—rain was making it hard for him to see the street clearly. He forgot his glasses back in the office again . . .

"Large snakes aren't poisonous, so they don't have fangs," Dante said, stooping a bit to flick mud off his pants. "If it was a big one, there should've been a whole lot of teeth marks around her neck."

"You watch animal planet—nice hobby. Me? I can't get over beer and late night television," Blake said, softly laughing afterwards.

"I have my hobbies," Dante said awkwardly and stepped away from the body. "By the way, you said the first girl lost some blood this way. It could be possible that she lost all of it through these wounds."

"That isn't possible," Blake said, shaking his hand. "The report suggests the wounds were made very quickly."

"What?" Dante asked, a grim look on his face.

"Well, according to the doctor, whatever bit her pulled out the teeth very quickly," Blake said to Dante and pulled out a cigarette pack from his coat, "so it isn't possible that it managed to suck her dry in mere seconds."

"Weird—" Dante said, cupping his chin.

"Okay, boys, take her away," Blake said to the men slowly making their way through the alleyway, carrying the body bag.

The men stuffed the body into the bag and carried it out of the alley.

"Want some smoke?" Blake asked, holding out the pack in his hand.

"Thanks, I don't smoke," Dante said with a wave of his hand.

"A non-smoking detective? You must be the first of your kind, kid," Blake said and drew on the cigarette clamped between his lips.

Dante smiled in reply and felt a strange chill steal itself slowly over his entire body: the air around him was menacing and cold.

"See you around, kid," Blake said, stretching out his hand. "If you want to see the post-mortem report, you can drop by my office in the morning."

"Sure, thanks," Dante said and shook Blake's hand.

Trish's eyes followed Blake till he stepped into his car and left.

"Still not interested?" Trish said, eyeing the hard look on Dante's face.

Dante remained quiet for a few seconds. "Let's go and see the report tomorrow—then we can decide," he said and took quick steps out of the quiet alley.

It was past 1 a.m. The streets were quiet and clouds were rolling out, leaving a clear sky, studded with countless stars, behind . . .

# # # # # #


	2. Missing Girls

# # # # # #

Sun rose bright and high above the squalid streets of this neglected part of town. _Devil May Cry's_ flashy sign had blown several fuses, and now, only the _Cry_ sign flashed continually after several long seconds. Everything had gone to the _shitter_ in his office . . .

The shop was closed at this time of the hour—sun had just burst through the night and only a red hue was visible at the sky's far end. Shafts of bright light travelled down to the ground and glanced prettily on the puddle from an open-gutter by the _Love Planet_. The authorities had yet to take any notice of it.

Three hookers were lazily walking down the lane, exhausted by the night's ordeal of playing hide-and-seek with the police cars. One of them laughed, showing off the cash they had made over the night. The other two shared in the joys of money making. It was enough to keep them off the streets for weeks.

Their soft laughs wafted to keen ears that stood up under hanks of white hair: Dante stood behind the partly open window, looking up at the lights running across the sky. A good night sleep seemed like a week-old memory. He tossed and turned in his bed all night, trying to make up his mind about this case.

He pressed his head against the window, letting the morning draft cool his body. He was in a habit of taking a quick shower in the morning, and today was no different.

Dante palmed his face and wiped away a few drops from the corner of his eyes. He cocked his eyes up at the crashing sound from the bathroom up stairs. Trish had done something again.

"Dante—ow—" Trish shouted and limped down stairs, a hand on her hip.

Dante thrust his hands into his pants' pockets, still looking out into the distance. "What did you do this time?" he asked and slightly knitted his brow.

"Your bathroom will kill me!" she growled and hopped down the last stair.

"Yeah, I'm sure, and my toilet will mess you up someday—what's new?" he said sarcastically and rolled his eyes.

Trish leant on the handrail, gritting her teeth. "I fell on your bathroom floor and almost broke my hip," she said, soothingly massaging her hip. "But the way it hurts, I think I've broken something this time."

"Really?" Dante asked, amused. "Don't worry," he said, keeping the note of tease in his voice, "I am sure it'll heal . . . _eventually_."

Trish straightened her back with a loud cracking sound, and slowly walked to the sofa lying close to Dante's self-made micro-demon wall-museum.

"Wow—that was loud." Dante chuckled and pulled his head back. "You're getting old—the clone of my mom," he teased, taking a few steps to his shirt, draped around the office chair.

Trish cautiously lowered herself on the sofa and pursed her red-painted lips. "Your childish teasing has no effect on a demon like me," she huffed and leant back into the comfy sofa.

"Yeah, whatever. Just keep your over-sized butt off my tiles next time," Dante said straightforwardly and slipped the light blue t-shirt on.

Trish jumped to her feet, livid. "Oversized butt?" she repeated, contorting her face as much as she could.

Dante lazily looked at her. "Don't over-react, Trish. This isn't the first time you've broken something in my bathroom. Last time, it was the sink," he accused, keeping his tone flat.

"It's not my fault you're so poor," Trish shot back, lowering her sharp tone down just a little bit.

"To think that papa Mundus had taught you some bathroom manners—guess I was wrong," he said honestly and flopped down on the chair sitting by the giant pool-table.

Trish opened her mouth to say something when the door creaked open. A fat man stepped into the shop, a huge smile pasted on his big unshaven face. His round belly jiggled as he clumped to the half-demon who cringed his face at the sight of him.

"Finally found some spare time, huh, fat boy?" Dante asked and pulled rebellion, which was stabbed through the wall, down to his lap.

The round man sent a toothy grin Dante's way that was met with a sour scowl.

"Are you still mad, Dante?" the man asked, stepping back at the shimmer of Dante's sharp blade.

Dante, letting out a sarcastic chuckle, turned rebellion in his hands. "Now, why would I be mad at you, Enzo? I guess, you took the case without asking me and sent me off on some wild goose chase by hogging all that cash," he ended with a wry smile. "Why would I be mad?"

Enzo felt a dry lump in his throat. He turned his eyes around and looked at the unsightly demons Dante had skewered to the walls like Halloween-party scares. Several Demons were missing lower bodies altogether.

Dante had just pinned them to the walls like trophies. Their skins were leathery and dry; even their jagged teeth looked like rusty kitchen knives; but they still looked very real and very ugly.

Enzo always felt a chill clasp him whenever he entered the shop; and, sometimes, he had unmistakably seen a shadow or two dancing under their remains. He never ventured into the shop when Dante was not around—it was too frightening.

"Look, Dante," Enzo began, sliding his gaze over Dante's large frown, "we're partners, right?"

"You know what, Enzo, I'm not gonna repeat something I've said about a million times before," Dante said and stuck his sword into the wooden-floor, "Trish's wreaking havoc all over my shop—so, getting to the point, I need that damn money—where is it?"

Trish slowly got to her feet, still feeling a stab of pain in her hips. "You're not thinking 'bout returning it, are you?" she asked, locking her electric blue eyes with Dante's.

"That's none of anyone's business," he said with an air of finality and stood up, leaving the standing sword pinned to the ground. "It's my decision to make, not yours—or yours." He pointed at Enzo.

"You haven't even seen the post-mortem report yet," she said in surprise, holding her ground.

"What difference will it make? I'm sure they must have found the killer snake's name by now," he answered back and curled his fingers around the metallic handle of his father's keepsake.

Trish sighed and folded her arms. "Why don't you go and check it out first? If they've found something, I'll back off and you can return the money—deal?" Trish asked, wearing a smile.

Dante looked at the demon, who showed more than a passing resemblance to his late mother, and said, "fine."

Enzo pulled his shabby cap down from his head and flicked off the dust at its crown. "I knew you'd come around," he said, smiling.

Dante said nothing in reply. He grabbed his light bluish coat from the hanger, casting a brief glance at the kick-knacks lumped together behind his drums, and hastily put it on.

"I asked Enzo not to give you the money, Dante," Trish said and unfolded her arms.

Dante's face showed a sudden flicker of amusement. "Really? Since when have you sided with this moron?" he asked, slipping his shiny guns under his coat—into the empty holsters.

Trish took a few paces to Dante and stood next to him. "I knew you'd do something rash, that's why," she said, playfully ruffling up his grey hair.

"Right," Dante said with the roll of his eyes and finger-combed his hair back into a perfect mess.

"I cleaned the car this morning, Dante. It's shining like a gem," Enzo said, clicking his fingers.

"That car cost me a fortune. There better not be a single scratch on it," Dante warned, walking to his sharp sword that still looked as new as the day his father gifted it to him.

Enzo let out a nervous laugh. "Don't be stupid—why would I do that?" Enzo said, scratching his messy noodle-like hair.

"Because that's _exactly_ like something you'd do," Dante said and pulled his sword out. Resting the sword on his arm like a spear, Dante clenched the handle in his hand. He aimed his sword at the giant dog's head, situated just above his office chair, and threw it like a boomerang.

Its sharp edge shimmered in the morning, light glimpsing on its edges, as it whirled forward with lightning fast speed and got speared into the wide-open mouth of the dead demon-dog.

"Bull's-eye!" Dante winked, curling up his lips into a smile. Then he stepped out of the office, followed by the smiling and overly impressed Trish.

Enzo squinted his eyes at the fresh blood dripping from the dog's mouth. He gulped down the air stuck in his throat and ran out from the office when he heard a whining sound put out by the long-dead demon-dog.

# # # # # #

Dante remained pretty quiet throughout the ride. A couple of times he asked Enzo to shut up and look ahead when he almost ran the car over an old lady crossing the road, with a tiny prairie dog. Apparently, he was discussing latest fashion trends with Trish sitting merrily on the back seat.

He had yet to get his hands on the money, but Enzo and Trish's plans for a shopping spree in _that_ expensive mall had reached to crazy-town. These two were getting on his nerves . . .

The streets were busy so Enzo could not put a spurt on and get out of the traffic blocked for about half a kilometre. When the road cleared, he increased the speed and then eased up near the police station.

They reached the station at quarter to ten, half an hour late than their scheduled time. Dante wanted to give Enzo a few heavy whacks for taking the wrong and long way around, but he decided to let it go, and instead, showed him a nasty frown as a future reminder.

The police station was _literally_ in the good part of the city where the good citizens lived. The mayor had not bothered himself to open a branch at the unprivileged part of town where criminals thrived and women lived in poor conditions. There had been an upsurge of crime there in the recent month or so—the mayor finally put his foot down.

Dante knew what made him stomp his feet and scream like a little tramp high on processed sugar, but there was no point in bringing that up to the police's notice. The first murder was that of his close friend's daughter. He screamed murder and what not at the election campaign . . . the killer had yet to be found.

Dante stepped in through the front door, greeted by every female eye **.** He always got all the attention. Even the male officers found him almost offensively good looking, with his perfectly chiseled features, sharp grey eyes, and lissome physique.

He exchanged few nice words and plenty of smiles with the female officer at the entrance and placed his guns on the table. The officer looked at him in awe as he made his way to the short and pudgy detective, who was moving himself round in his little three-wheeled chair, just a couple of feet away.

The old detective looked at him, slightly wide-eyed with enthusiasm. "You made it," he said, eyeing Dante's happy face that suddenly turned a bit cautious, "a little late, no?"

Dante directed a quick annoyed look Enzo's way. "Sorry 'bout that," he said quickly, "got stuck in traffic."

Blake waved his hand. "No need to apologise. The traffic here can be a bitch," he commented, reaching for a pile of files on his desk. "Ah, this is the one. It came in this morning." He pulled out a red file from the clutter of others on his messy desk and handed it over to Dante.

Dante opened the file and flicked through the three-paged autopsy report. It was not what he was excepting . . .

"Not quite what you were expecting, huh?" Blake's voice broke his disbelief. "It's the same old story—no one knows how these two girls died."

Dante placed the file back on the table and stood tight-lipped, avoiding Trish's wide smile and Enzo's annoying gurgling chuckles that they had won this round to get some much-needed dough.

"Several girls had gone missing before and between the two murders," Blake said, holding out another file for Dante to take. "They still haven't been found."

"You think these disappearances are connected?" Dante asked and took the file from Blake's hand.

Blake slowly got to his feet and passed his hand over his sagging stomach. It looked like an under-cooked doughnut. "We aren't sure, but we're looking into it—could be anything at this point in this freaky case."

Dante did not say anything. This really was beginning to look pretty _fucking_ weird.

"You can take this copy home," he said, grabbing a large chocolate doughnut from the doughnut-box. It was half-empty.

"Thanks," Dante said almost absentmindedly.

Blake brushed off a few crumbs from his shirt and spoke, "by the way, you're quite good with the ladies, kid."

Dante gave a cocky smirk in reply, casting a brief glance at the female officers around them—they returned his smile quite heartily.

"If you were an officer here, no woman would've done anything," he said honestly, giving a soft laugh afterwards. "Anyway, you can get in contact with me any time."

"Thanks," Dante said, sensing his thoughts take a flight . . .

"I've got to get back to work now. Good luck," he said and slumped down into his chair.

Trish took the file from Dante's hand and parted her lips in a full victory-smile. "Let's go. And by the way, I win."

"Whatever," Dante shot back, and strode to the lady still smiling at him with his guns in her hands . . .

# # # # # #


	3. A Wicked Night Visit

# # # # # #

"You know what," Dante said, throwing the thick file on his messy table, "I think you've lost some of the loose screws in your head, _mom_."

Trish leant on the table cluttered with empty soda cans, pizza boxes, girly magazines, and other things under all that trash heap.

"All I'm saying is, you should start investigating by questioning the families," she said with a lazy wave of her right hand, "we might find out more about the girls, and—"

"Let me correct myself," he said, feigning innocence, "you've lost _all_ the screws in your head—down _my_ toilet, which you broke yesterday."

She straightened her back and let out a loud and long sigh. "You'll not get anywhere without questioning the families."

He casually put both his legs onto the table, throwing a mountain of dirt stuck under his shoes on the sprawl of dirty magazines. "I've been doing things my way, way before you came into this world," he said and grabbed one of the magazines from the table.

She folded her arms across her chest, looking stern and rather fed up with Dante's ' _I want to do it my way_ ' attitude. "And how did you do it? I'm curious—'cause you're poor these days, you know?"

He sent a cheeky smile her way and crossed his legs. "You'd find out soon enough. Right now, I just wanna relax," he said and buried his nose in that magazine filled with nothing but page after page of almost nude women. "I'm already too depressed after seeing those dead women."

After finally realising that it was a dead-end with Dante and his bull headedness, Trish turned around with a defeated sigh only to find a timid woman sticking her head through the partially open door.

"Can I help you?" She took two steps to the woman who looked as if she had been caught in broad daylight, jumping around in her knickers.

She pulled her head back and disappeared for a few seconds and then almost toddled through the main door, holding her purse tightly in her hands.

"Is—is this Devil May Cry?" she asked in a strange, choked back voice.

"Great, now we are getting customers who can't even read," he complained from behind the table, still busy with the nearly pornographic magazine. "Look, sweetheart, today is Monday, but I'm treating it like Sunday—come back tomorrow."

Trish flicked Dante an angry glance, which was met with no apparent response from the Devil lost in his daily indulgence. She returned all of her attention to the woman still standing by the door, looking ready to bail out and run far far away from this place in the opposite direction.

"Yes, it is," she answered, feeling almost as happy as Dante that they were about to get another case.

"I came here to get help," she began, clutching her purse in one hand, "you see, my sister's gone missing, and I—"

Dante slapped the magazine on the table in annoyance. "Listen," he paused suddenly, taking a good hard look at the woman standing stiff-as-a-board by the door: she had a beautiful face, so beautiful that he could have sworn he had never seen anyone as beautiful as her. _What am I thinking? This is crazy!_ he thought—yeah, this was bloody crazy.

Her dark brown eyes looked as if they had sunk in from illness. The dark circles under them bore a strange resemblance to mascara. Her shoulder-length wavy black-hair fell in tight curls around her child-like oval face.

She looked innocent, but his Devil senses told him that she was a grown woman in her late twenties, or probably early thirties. He sniffed her strange, almost overpowering female scent that lingered in the room.

"Listen," he repeated, taking in the scent again, feeling his vision go blurry for just a tiny part of a second, " _babe_ —today isn't a good day. Besides, this isn't a police station. You should try there."

The weirdly beautiful woman took long, quick steps to the huge ugly table and fished a black pearl necklace from her purse. "I've already gone to the police," she began breathlessly, looking at him in desperation, "but I fear she might've been kidnapped by the killer. You've got to help me—I can pay!" She placed the necklace on the table.

Dante, still keenly looking at the woman, lazily pulled his legs down from the table. He took the necklace in his hand and looked at it. It looked expensive.

"This is worth a fortune, and it's all I have," she said and put her shaking hand to her breast.

He returned his half-lusty, half-curious gaze to the woman who was still looking at him pleadingly. He had to give in . . . even if it was just an _in the moment_ kind of a decision.

# # # # # #

Dante was livid with anger, or as livid as he could have been. Yesterday, he had taken up the girl on her offer for the case in exchange for the pearl necklace. And today, he was in some random house, waiting in a lavishly set living room for the owners to show up. What had he reduced himself to?

He skittered his hand through his ever-grey hair and moved his sharp eyes around the room. The room had heavy curtains hanging down from a rod, situated not more than two inches below the ceiling line. They were dark red with even darker rose designs threaded into them.

They were drawn to let in the last light of the sun. The shadows of the trees in the garden were stretched to his boots on the expensive-looking rug. He moved his eyes a little to look at the dusty boot marks—more like a trail of it—shining like a nasty brown surprise against the dark colour of the rug.

 _Damn, and I I'd wiped my shoes at the entrance at least a dozen times_ , he thought angrily, dropping his hand on the comfy sofa.

The cold steel of his trusty guns was eating into his back. It was due to the sudden drop in temperatures because of the recent rains. Trish urged, like a doting mom, that he should wrap himself in a woollen sweater or something before he gave her one of those ' _are you fucking kidding me?_ ' looks.

Did she really think he needed a couple of sweaters on his body to keep him all warm and fuzzy? He was a demon—all right, a half demon—but that still counted for something.

He had pure demon-blood running through his veins, and, the way his steel sword had been growing over the past months, it was obvious that his mother's lingering traces were going away for good; but he did not know how to feel about that. He turned his head a little to look at the demon again, who was so reminiscent of his late mother.

 _Well, almost_ , he thought quickly after his gaze lingered down just a bit to where her huge and openly visible cleavage was. He had to say it, even if it was going to end up in another argument between them.

"Can't you dress properly for a change?" he asked suddenly, looking at the stunned expression on her fair face.

Her perfectly red-painted lips pursed tightly and a lot of lines formed on her usually line-free forehead.

"Excuse me?" she asked and slipped one leg over the other.

Dante pulled Ebony from under the hem of his pants and started dangling it between his forefinger and thumb. "You heard me. Do you always have to look like an expensive prostitute?" he asked and watched how rapidly the colour rose in her cheeks and her contours contorted as if she had been greatly offended by the demon's honesty.

She brought her hands down on the sofa hard, her jaw jutting out in anger. "I don't look like a prostitute," she hissed, defending herself.

"I'm sorry?" he said sarcastically and pointed the long silver barrel at his equally sarcastic face, "are you arguing with _me_ on this?" He raised his eyebrows high as if she did not know the obvious.

Her nostrils flared but she relaxed into the sofa. "Yes, of course, how wouldn't you know? You were brought up among prostitutes." The note of sarcasm in her voice was high and slightly condescending, but it was not enough to injure his over-inflated pride and ego.

"No, that was after my mother got chopped up. I had nowhere else to go—so I started living over and under plenty of women. So much love. But what is your excuse?" he asked, quirking his eyebrow and putting his right leg over the left. "Too much American Pop, or are my porn magazines your inspiration?"

Trish, slapping the sides of her thighs, turned her head to look at his face. "What's your problem? And honestly, why should it even bother you what I wear?"

"You know, before this waiting gets any more weird, I'm gonna to cut to the chase—you look like my Mom—it's weird!" Dante said, holding back the usual flow of sarcasm this time, "I don't want you looking like this, flashing your tits and ass in my face twenty-four seven. Get it, miss tight-prostitute-leather pants?"

She gasped loudly, her eyes widening that he did not just venture a bad statement about her two-thousand and five-hundred-dollar genuine leather pants. "This is designer wear."

"Great—bet you bought one for Enzo, too. Now, I'll have two hookers in my office—my mom and a fat and probably over fifty widower." He held up two fingers and then quickly slipped the gun back under his coat.

Trish's jaws looked slightly unhinged as she inhaled and exhaled noisily. "Shame on you, Dante," she said finally and composed herself a little when she heard footsteps on the other side of the double-door.

"Just put a paper bag on your head next time when you decide to shake your gifts in my office," he said and pulled his leg down. "Maybe then I'd have a shadow of a doubt that I'm looking at something other than my Mundus-cooked mom."

"It's the case, isn't it?" Trish began, smoothing out some wrinkles on her dark-brown sweater.

"No, I don't think so," Dante said curtly and bent his attention on a snake painting hanging on the wall in front of him about fifteen feet away. The heavy brush strokes of green and light green made the whole painting look green, even if there were other colours in it.

"I knew it," she paused and turned her blue eyes at him, "just do as I say and everything will be fine."

He gave a rough chuckle that came out as a sarcastic, heavy snort. "Yeah, and when they figure out that I'm not the guy I pretended to be on the phone, I'll be eating their fancy white concrete the next second."

"It's marble, Dante."

"Hell if I care! The point is that I'll have to act like a goody-goody scout boy and not smash that guard's face in when he throws us out," he said, pointing his thumb at the door. "And when it does happen, it'll, of course, be _all_ your fault."

"Right, because I'm the one who took on the case," she shot back, sensing a rise in Dante's anger. Maybe she had finally struck a nerve.

"Listen, you—" he began and raised a finger high when a man and a woman in their early sixties walked into the room.

The man stood straight in a dignified manner and the woman, who was probably his wife, clasped her hands together. "Sorry to have kept you waiting for so long," she said politely when both Dante and Trish scrambled to their feet.

"It's a'right," Dante replied quickly and gazed at the sober-looking woman and the rueful expression on her face.

"I'm Margret and this is my husband, John," she introduced herself and her husband who quickly shook hands with Dante. "I was the one who talked with you on the phone, Mr. Dante."

"Yeah, I remember," Dante said politely.

"Please." Margret gestured Dante to resume the sofa again.

"You know why we called you here," she said, and her face strained with emotion. She was still reeling from the shock of her daughter's sudden brutal death.

He remained silent, looking at the mother's face and then the father's. He could not understand where his mind was wandering. There was a familiar smell in the air—that same damned smell.

 _Has she been here?_ he asked himself, trying to concentrate through the haze of lust, wonder, and dreamy sensations again.

"Have you found anything?"

The voice reached Dante suddenly. He lifted his sharp grey eyes, meeting the blue eyes of the woman. The face of that girl he had seen dumped next to the dumpster flashed before his eyes. It was a sudden, almost automatic thought, but he felt that she must have looked just like her daughter when she was her age.

"Nothing important, but," he paused and clenched his jaws; his head was getting a little fuzzy again, "do you know anything that might help us?"

Margret's features changed; she looked devastated now. She shook her head a little and held back a sob that choked her completely.

"I'm sorry," Dante said, took in a lungful of air, and began again, "we weren't able to find anything from the postmortem reports, but I'm sure you already knew that."

"I—I'm . . . s-sorry," Margret barely managed between tiny, controlled sobs. She clamped her hand over her trembling lips and quickly walked out of the room.

John's eyes followed her as she walked through the door and then they returned back to Dante and Trish. "I apologise, but I can't be of much help. I was mostly away and . . . "

"I can understand," Dante said, getting to his feet. "I don't think your wife is in any position to tell me anything. I'll come by some other time."

"I'd appreciate that," the old man said, shaking Dante's hand.

Dante and Trish walked out of the manor and sauntered down the wavy path to the gate. The chill in the air was still heavy. Dante's warm breath lingered like white, smoky wisps.

He slipped his hands in his rugged brown jeans. His long black coat was hanging down a few inches above the ground. It was a bizarre fashion sense he had. He never even knew when and where he picked it up, but he always wanted to wear a coat over his limited wardrobe.

"That was weird," Trish said, walking slowly next to him.

"I don't think I would expect you to understand," Dante answered and stepped out of the large iron-gate that clanked shut behind them.

"What do you mean? And I was expecting you to at least question the father," she said, pulling up the zipper on her sweater.

"Great, he's waving—yes, you moron, bring the car around," he said loudly, a hint of annoyance in his voice at Enzo's energetic waving from across the street. "There are two things you refuse to understand. One, you're a demon—"

Trish raised both of her hands as if she was about to argue with him again and pursed her lips.

"No, Trish, let me finish," he said, shaking his finger, "two, what do you expect from a businessman who was never home? And last, at least don't dress like a fashion-victim next time you decide to tag along? The way their eyebrows went up at your in-your-face tits, I was dreading they'd throw us both straight out the door."

"That makes three, Dante." She rolled her eyes and stepped away from the pavement as Enzo parked the car a little too close to them.

"Run me over, why don't you?" He directed an angry glare at Enzo who sheepishly smiled and choked out something like ' _sorry_ ' from the front seat of the car. "Good thing you finally learned to count. I'm still traumatised from the last time you handled the money," Dante said and stepped into the car, followed by the outraged Trish.

The ride home was quiet and peaceful—much quieter than Dante had expected. Trish had decided to shut up about the whole nasty manor incident, and if she remained quiet, Enzo had nothing worse to say. They both remained tight-lipped and silent.

He was happy by the time they made it back. Trish simply threw a couple of nasty swear words at him under her breath and stormed out of the office, without even saying a lousy ' _thank you_ ' for the dinner he bought her along the way.

"This woman's so ungrateful," he said behind her, "no wonder pop kicked the bucket. Or who knows, he filed for divorce and died through alimony."

The night came slowly and silently. The hookers came out on the streets, as usual. The police had extended the curfew to two more hours after twelve a.m., so their business had finally begun to thrive after three long months of stand-still.

The flashy lights from Love Planet racked his walls from one corner to another. Music from the night club blasted into his room from the open window. He walked up to it and snapped it shut. Yes, it was business as usual in this part of town.

But Dante was tired today, so tired that he did not know why. Maybe it was that he had had one drink too many at the bar; or maybe, he knobbed that unknown stripper behind the changing room. He did not care what the reason was. He just wanted to go to sleep.

So he dragged himself to his bed and fell onto it in a sprawl, and the next thing he knew, he was fast asleep, disturbed by a sound; a voice, a sweet warm voice of a woman. Its warmth snuck over to his body like a stray cat.

"Dante," she said somewhere from inside his room—maybe just a few feet away?

He opened his trembling eyes that refused to open from the burden of sleep that pushed them down. The haze cleared from over them, and he found himself looking at that woman who had urged him to take on this case. She was so beautiful . . . that was all that spun in his mind.

A shaft of moonlight travelling into his room struck her form. Her wild, twisted hair was in disarray upon her shoulders and bosom. By the glimpse of moonlight, her figure became visible through the black silk. Her light brown nipples stood in the chill. Her whole body shone like the lightest and finest of olives under that thin black layer of clothing. She looked away and then returned her dark eyes back to him again.

"Dante, will you?" she asked in a soft voice that sounded so distant, but he could see her clearly now, so very clearly.

Dante tried to get up, but his body held him down. He felt the bed sink a little, and the next moment, he felt her weight on his body. She was sitting on his torso, one leg on either side. She slowly reached down and grabbed her dress and began to pull it up teasingly with a pretty smile on her lips.

His eyes followed the dress as she lifted it up inch by inch, revealing just a little more of herself. The dress slipped up over her skin that glowed in the room's darkness, and he caught a glimpse of her round breasts and the hard nipples that awaited his touch. Lust had clasped him the moment he saw her, but, now, it was narrowing down hard on him. Blood was rushing through his veins, and his heart was hammering in his chest. He heard it pounding like a rock-concert drums in his ears.

She slipped the gown off her body, revealing completely what was just hazily visible under her dress moments ago. Now, the only thing that covered her was an underwear and the wavy hair that covered her full breasts. She leant in and whispered something.

Her hot and deliciously sweet breath fanned out on his lips, but instead of the rise in lust alone, a strange kind of hunger rose in him, as well. His chest tightened, and his heart jumped as if something was pressing it inwards from all sides.

Something tore itself out from inside him, and before he got a chance to even touch her, she vanished like dispersing smoke in front of him, leaving behind a strange light glow of her eyes. That glow lingered for a second and then it, too, disappeared like her. He shut his eyes from the searing pain tearing at his body.

Dante's eyes flew open. He was breathing hard and his whole body was hurting like a _bitch!_ He quickly sat up and felt his hands clench from pain. He lifted his right hand and saw his long nails retract back into his skin that looked torn and leathery. A couple of scales had pierced out of his skin's pores, and he could see fine trickles of blood travel down his bare arm.

Slowly, drop by drop, blood plopped on his black jeans. He looked from his demonic transformation wounds to his nails that had completely travelled back into his skin. He wiped the sweat from his face and fisted some hair. He had _never_ transformed in his sleep before—not ever!

"A . . . dream?" he whispered to himself and ran his eyes around the room. It was empty . . .

# # # # # #


End file.
